social media

This article is second in a series on each part of the WordPress dashboard, as seen on my Maximum Author Impact website.

Valentine’s Day is approaching. Have you thought of lavishing a little love on your blog? Specifically the part where you actually type the words that allow you to connect with your readers.

Sure, you could have a website without posts, and some people do, but that feature of your website is there whether you share your thoughts and feelings or not. Let’s explore the features of this most commonly used section of WordPress.

Long Dark Permalink of the Soul

I’m pretty confident y’all know about that field on the top of the page where you type your title. But did you know that title also becomes the filename of your post? That is, it becomes the URL where Google and everyone can find you. Google is hungry for words, and the more sensical words you put in your title, the more likely readers interested in your topic will be to find you. WordPress provides many options for the permalink of your post. You’ll find information about permalinks in the Settings section of the dashboard menu, but essentially the permalink structure provides the format for your URL. You can choose whether you want the permalink to contain the title, or if you’d rather organize it by date. I recommend using the title.

If your title is too long, you have the ability to edit it by clicking the button of the same name beside the permalink. On this post, you’ll notice the title is much longer than the actual permalink. I clicked the edit button and shortened it. Note that all spaces and punctuation are removed automatically and replaced with dashes between each word.

Social Posts Made Easy

You may not have this feature on your Posts screen, but you really should. The CoSchedule editorial calendar is a fabulous plugin that will revolutionize the way you handle blog posting. It adds a social queue to the bottom of the window that looks something like this (click the image to see the detail):

While it’s on your mind, you can set up social shares for that day, the next day, a week after, and a month after, as well as any custom date you like. That way you’ll be sure to keep a regular flow of shares going. A bonus is the social analytics provided, so you’ll know what posts are your readers’ favorites.

If you’ve been blogging for any length of time, you have a treasure trove of posts begging to be discovered by a new audience. The key to successfully sharing those gems is knowing which were popular the first time around. How do you find that out?

Let’s run through a few ways to check statistics, and then I’ll tell you the method I recommend.

Facebook – Go to your Activity Log and click on Your Posts. They are listed by year in reverse chronological order. Or use the Activity Search box. Look at the number of “likes” you’ve received for the posts so you can see what’s most popular.

Twitter – Click on your profile photo and choose Analytics. You can see how your tweet impressions are doing, how many profile visits you’ve had, mentions, and number of followers. Tweet highlights are listed by month in reverse chronological order. Click View Tweet Activity to see likes, link clicks and retweets.

LinkedIn – Clicking on Profile/Your Updates will show you what you posted, but either nobody liked any of my posts, or that information isn’t available.

Pinterest—Click on Analytics, and you can see how often your pins are viewed.

These methods are fine if you want more in-depth information about how you’re doing on an individual site. If you want to know specifically about all your posts on social media in one convenient dashboard, try CoSchedule.

CoSchedule is a WordPress plugin that functions as an editorial calendar, allowing scheduling of blog posts and coordinating with others who post to your site. A helpful feature is its ability to schedule your social media posts at the same time you schedule your blog post.

The analytics feature, though, is what provides the most benefit if you want to re-share previous posts. The default calendar view itself shows you the number of interactions with each post, but clicking on Top Posts in the WordPress dashboard in the Calendar section reveals a delicious array of data. The first column provides you with the total number of interactions, whether likes, shares or retweets. The second column shows the avatar of the person who wrote the post, along with the title, how long ago it was posted and the date. A bar graph in the next column shows a breakdown of individual activity for each social site to which you’ve linked your account. The final column tells how many shares you have prepared for that post that haven’t appeared yet, as well as the total number sent and a button allowing you to share the post again.

Isn’t that a lovely convenience? I can take a few moments each day or each week to work my way down the list and share the ones that are popular or those I think deserve more exposure. Maybe you’ve written a post on a topic that’s suddenly become trending since you wrote it. Share it again for even more exposure.

I’ve found CoSchedule to be a great program for my blogging and social activity. Try it out and see how it works for your social sharing.

I’ll confess right up front. I’m a website snob. It’s an occupational hazard.

That’s why, when I came across CoSchedule’s website, I was smitten. The site is everything a modern website should be—clean, easy to read and navigate, with a delicious color scheme.

But you know what they say about beauty being skin-deep? CoSchedule’s beauty is bone-deep.

[Tweet “@CoSchedule’s beauty is bone-deep. #blogging #editorial “]

Enough teasing. Let’s get down to the facts. If you want a preview, here’s CoSchedule’s own two-minute summary of the product:

Schedule Your Posts—and More

CoSchedule is a WordPress plugin and web app that lets you schedule blog posts. But that’s not all. You can also schedule social media right inside your dashboard. That’s one of the features that makes it so great.

The Calendar shows all your activity at a glance.

Let’s start with the Calendar. Click to the image on the left to see the details. The Calendar shows you at a glance everything you’ve got going. Tasks are indicated with a checkmark beside them. Scheduled posts have a colored line at the top of their entry, along with the title, the category, and a percentage of how complete its task list is. A past blog post has a number of how many shares it’s had instead of a completion percentage. Scheduled social media posts are listed by time, and have a symbol based on where the message will appear. Non-blog post items (called content) also appear on the calendar with their tasks listed.

Editing and Socializing and Tasking

More glancing–everything you need for a specific post

The Edit Post window is connected with your post in WordPress. When you schedule the post here, it sets the scheduling in the actual edit post area.

Tasks are a very useful feature, and probably my favorite part of CoSchedule. When you set them, you determine what tasks you need to accomplish and when, such as writing the actual post or choosing photos. If you have repetitive tasks that you do routinely for every post, you can create a task template, and apply it to each post as you choose. As we saw earlier, the tasks you create appear on your calendar. If you have other people who participate in your blog, you can assign tasks to them.

Speaking of other people participating, I don’t want to leave out that aspect of CoSchedule just because I do a blog alone. The program is designed with shared blogging in mind; in fact, CoSchedule uses their own product to schedule their (content-rich and delicious) blog posts. Features such as the ability to assign an author to a post, and the comments area, readily lend themselves to multiple bloggers.

Heart and Soul, I Fell in Love With You…

The heart and soul of what makes CoSchedule unique and wonderful is the social queue. Right alongside the tasks, you can schedule what posts you wish to publish to which social media platforms. CoSchedule connects with Buffer to send out these messages.

Set up your social media platforms in advance, choose them on the fly.An instant post, courtesy of CoSchedule.

You begin by selecting for which social profile you wish to create a message, from the list you made when you set up the plugin. As you can see in this image on the right, CoSchedule automatically fills in shortcodes for the title and permalink. At any point in scheduling these messages, you can type in your own words in addition to or instead of the title shortcode. Choose the date and time for the message to be sent, and you’re good to go. What thrills me about this is I can schedule these messages ahead of time when I’m focused on this task, rather than later when I’m busy with other tasks. The plugin even suggests a schedule for these messages: same day as publish, day after, week after and month after. You even have the ability to set a custom date. Once your post goes live, you can check social shares from within WordPress.

And then there’s Click to Tweet. Wow. This feature is what drew me to CoSchedule in the first place. It’s a free plugin that allows you to insert ready-made tweets for your readers to use in sharing your message. How could that be any easier? Look at the beginning of this post and you’ll see what I mean. Like everything else related to CoSchedule, it’s quick and simple. Click where you want the tweet to appear, click the icon on your toolbar, type in the desired tweet, and that’s all.

I could go on rhapsodizing about CoSchedule’s blog, with so much knowledge-goodness crammed into every pixel until each post might explode, but you get the idea. I encourage you to experience the wonder that is CoSchedule for yourself with a free trial. Whether you’re a procrastinating blogger (like the person writing this) or a super-motivated one, you’ll find something to like.